RE: [election-services] Ballot counting - bridging between EML 410 and EML 230

["Zelechoski, Peter" <pzelechoski@essvote.com>]

Title: Message

David & Paul -

 

Our optical tabulators work in the way David has described.  We produce results that show the voted positions.  Due to rotations, there may be multiple ballot layouts at a given location, so a tabulator would need to also provide what ballot form the voted positions were associated with.  Then, the coupling of voting position tabulation with ballot form mapping of the voting position to the contest/selection would allow the results to be rendered. 

 

- Peter

Peter Zelechoski, ES&S

-----Original Message-----
From: David RR Webber (XML) [mailto:david@drrw.info]
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 9:42 AM
To: Paul Spencer
Cc: eml
Subject: RE: [election-services] Ballot counting - bridging between EML 410 and EML 230

Paul,

 

Ok - that will certainly work - and that is what I was looking for.

 

I'll go with this as the solution approach. 

 

The only caveat then is that you could still have a 230 out there exposing the names and codes - but given the counting code is open source - that should not be an issue (e.g if the wrong 230 ended up being subsituted).

This level of use of the schema brings up (again) the notion of templates for the EML schema use patterns.

This would be a use pattern for counting, obviously.

 

Maybe we can introduce something into the appendix noting each pattern available and then provide samples externally in the doc.oasis-open.org/elections directory?

 

This is something other TCs are also moving to with the new releases of spec's - so we can certainly follow that approach for our 5.0 release.

 

We'll need to ask OASIS to setup the docs. area for us however.

 

Thanks, DW

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [election-services] Ballot counting - bridging between EML
410 and EML 230
From: "Paul Spencer" <paul.spencer@boynings.co.uk>
Date: Tue, July 18, 2006 10:10 am
To: "David Webber" <david@drrw.info>
Cc: "eml" <election-services@lists.oasis-open.org>

David,

I think the ShortCode attribute of the candidate could be good for this. The
ShortCode was intended for uses such as SMS voting, where the candidates are
listed in order and the voter votes for number 1, number 2 etc. If we are
talking about the counting engine working in field order, this seems to be a
similar requirement.

The 510 could then use the ShortCode as the only identifier for the
candidate, the code just representing the order on the ballot. Meanwhile, a
version of the 230 could be used providing just the Id and ShortCode
attributes for each candidate.

A section of the 510 would then look like:

<TotalVotes>
<Selection>
<CandidateIdentifier ShortCode="01"/>
<ValidVotes>1234</ValidVotes>
</Selection>
<Selection>
<CandidateIdentifier ShortCode="02"/>
<ValidVotes>2345</ValidVotes>
</Selection>
<Selection>
<CandidateIdentifier ShortCode="03"/>
<ValidVotes>4321</ValidVotes>
</Selection>
</TotalVotes>

Meanwhile, a portion of the 230 would be:

<Contest>
<ContestIdentifier Id="12"/>
<Candidate>
<CandidateIdentifier Id="ABC" ShortCode="01"/>
</Candidate>
<Candidate>
<CandidateIdentifier Id="BCD" ShortCode="02"/>
</Candidate>
<Candidate>
<CandidateIdentifier Id="CDE" ShortCode="03"/>
</Candidate>
</Contest>

I assume that this 230 would be used by the counting engine. Would this meet
this need? Does rotation have an impact?

By the way, I did not get your email directly. Perhaps this is related to
the new OASIS mailing system. I have not yet had the re-registration email.
It is possible others did not see it either.

Regards

Paul


----- Forwarded Message ----
From: David RR Webber (XML) <david@drrw.info>
To: Election EML <election-services@lists.oasis-open.org>
Sent: Monday, 17 July, 2006 3:14:42 AM
Subject: [election-services] Ballot counting - bridging between EML 410 and
EML 230


Team,

I'm working on an anonymous counting mechanism for use with paper scanned
ballots particularly - but the same could also apply to DRE votes too.

When the ballot comes off the scanner - the scanner is just plucking fields
and columns and X's - so it has no idea of candidates / ballots et al.

That is a good thing.

So it merely dumps data as <fieldID="XXX" value="1"/> where XXX is the
sequential # of the field it scanned.

Now I want to align fieldID=023 with candidate 007 - etc, but I want to do
this anonymously - like putting beans in tins - so the counting mechanism
has no idea which tin is what.

Unfortunately EML 230 exposes the candidate affliation, description, etc.

What I need is a bridging EML that maps between the actual ballot layout -
EML 410 and the list of voting candidates / options - anonymously - (that
will create EML 440's then from this and the scanner output).

I can of course go ahead and create some XML for this purpose - fieldID =
candidateID and that is all that is in that EML - excepting header
information on the event etc for matching purposes.

I'm just wondering if I'm missing something that exists already?

If not - should we add this to EML 5.0 requirements?

The goal is to create a general purpose counting system that can total EML
ballots given the EML control XML's - EML 110 - and this other EML XML - and
then this runs thru and does all the totals by anonymous ID value.

A final step then separately and independently uses the final counts, and
the EML 230 to figure out who got what votes.

Thanks, DW


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